A great many TMBG fans consider Flood to be their best album, and the primary reason is that it contains so many great, really memorable songs. One of the most notable appearances is Istanbul (Not Constantinople), a song TMBG didn't write, though it sounds like one they would have written.

[common] 1. To overwhelm a network channel with
mechanically-generated traffic; especially used of IP, TCP/IP, UDP,
or ICMP denial-of-service attacks. 2. To dump large amounts of
text onto an IRC channel. This is especially rude when the
text is uninteresting and the other users are trying to carry on a
serious conversation. Also used in a similar sense on Usenet.
3. [Usenet] To post an unusually large number or volume of files on
a related topic.

The situation where the presence of a large amount of water in the wrong place causes property and/or human losses. Floods are one of the most dangerous and devastating natural disasters known to mankind. While early warning systems have improved since the time of Noah, increased competition for land resources have made more people vulnerable to flooding.

Not much water is required to do damage, as anybody who has noticed the effects poorly maintained plumbing can do may testify. A mere four inches of water will mess up your carpet. Six inches of water flowing swiftly can knock you off your feet. Cars can be carried away with two feet of flood water. Aside from putting lives at risk through drowning and landslides, floods have many indirect effects that are hazardous to human health, like contaminating water supplies.

Most floods are caused when weather patterns produce more rain than a region can handle, either through channeling the water out to sea through rivers, or by being absorbed by the soil. Water naturally flows downhill, feeding into streams and then rivers. As a river collects more water, it is liable to burst its banks, spilling water into surrounding low-lying flat areas, called flood plains. Debris can block river systems, causing more water to be diverted.

River floods , where a river's banks perennially burst every year, are the most common type of flood. Many communities around the world expect their local river to seasonally ]flood]; indeed wet rice farming is dependent upon a crop being saturated with water in the wet season. Coastal floods happen when huge amount of ocean water is deposited inland usually by off-shorewinds like hurricanes and tropical storms, or occasionally by tsunamis. Flash floods are frighteningly swift floods that can occur in narrow gullies or creek beds (arroyos) in barely minutes. Urban floods occur in cities where the transformed terrain prevents water from being drained adequately (and instead goes into people's cellars).
IceJams are floods caused by ice obstructing the flow of water, diverting it into a flood plain.
Dam Bursts are the consequences of dams or locks being accidentally or deliberately damaged.

The worst flood in history occurred in September 1887 when the Yellow River in China burst its banks and killed over 900,000 people. Another flood in 1939 claimed around half a millionChinese lives, and recent floods have caused considerable damage.

The novel starts in an unexpected place -- Barcelona, where factions of terrorists and guerrilla groups fight for control of Spain. One faction, a group of Muslim terrorists, have collected a group of American/UK scientists and military folk as potentially useful bargaining chips. But as the years pass, they find that the hostages are not as useful as they had hoped, and they eventually sell them on the cheap to the the private employer of one of the scientists. Saved from seemly endless imprisonment and abuse, the hostages return to a almost unrecognizable world.

An unidentified process is causing the sea level to rise much faster than global warming can account for. Coastal cities are starting to flood regularly, and then, within a matter of years, permanently. As the floods spread masses of refugees plague the land and governments struggle to both stop the encroaching water and repair increasingly damaged infrastructure. The hostages, now PR pets of the global corporation AxysCoprs, are pulled into projects trying to figure out what is happening and how to stop it. The novel follows them as they travel the world and see the rising waters slowly swallow the world.

This novel has comparatively little in the way of traditional science fiction. A massive portion of the text is given over to a plodding chronicle of successive disasters, mixed with a travelogue of snapshots of major world cities being slowly flooded. We are treated to an intermittent but never-ending litany of what is flooding, what is threatened, and what is gone. And this goes on for 50 years, and nearly 500 pages. Over those 50 years technology continues, but at a slow pace, and we don't see anything much more technologically advanced than bio-engineered seaweed.

There is a good amount of excitement and a number of interesting events spread throughout the book, becoming, in my opinion, ever more interesting as the story goes on. Although the story is slow-moving, it manages to cover a lot of ground and to have a good amount of scientific backing. While the main theme of the story is very much tragedy, both personal and for humanity in general, it is not entirely depressing and does not let the suffering overwhelm the characters.

All in all, I do not particularly recommend this book. There's just too much boring repetition of "now X is gone; oops, there goes Y", spread over too little action and too few surprises. However, if you expect to have a boring weekend and come across this book, it might do as a beach book (it's a bit too long for an airport book, however). If you do start reading it, the story picks up a bit after about 200 pages, and continues to pick up pace (or, at least, interesting new elements) after that.

Flood does have a sequel, Ark, which covers some of the same time period and follows up on some of the central events in Flood.

A great flow of water; a body of moving water; the flowing stream, as of a river; especially, a body of water, rising, swelling, and overflowing land not usually thus covered; a deluge; a freshet; an inundation.

A covenant never to destroy
The earth again by flood.
Milton.

2.

The flowing in of the tide; the semidiurnal swell or rise of water in the ocean; -- opposed to ebb; as, young flood; high flood.

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.
Shak.

3.

A great flow or stream of any fluid substance; as, a flood of light; a flood of lava; hence, a great quantity widely diffused; an overflowing; a superabundance; as, a flood of bank notes; a flood of paper currency.

4.

Menstrual disharge; menses.

Harvey.

Flood anchorNaut. , the anchor by which a ship is held while the tide is rising. -- Flood fence, a fence so secured that it will not be swept away by a flood. -- Flood gate, a gate for shutting out, admitting, or releasing, a body of water; a tide gate. -- Flood mark, the mark or line to which the tide, or a flood, rises; high-water mark. -- Flood tide, the rising tide; -- opposed to ebb tide. -- The Flood, the deluge in the days of Noah.

To overflow; to inundate; to deluge; as, the swollen river flooded the valley.

2.

To cause or permit to be inundated; to fill or cover with water or other fluid; as, to flood arable land for irrigation; to fill to excess or to its full capacity; as, to flood a country with a depreciated currency.